Who Is Better?

[El-P]

Again, your own words in the second line....

 

The idea that Takada is a great shoot style worker, for example, is a completely dated idea.

 

Maybe. That doesn't make it less valuable.

"Maybe" is very hard to read as "no, that's silly".

 

Ok, want to play quote game.

You quoted me saying :

 

Holding onto 93 opinions? What? If I believe right now that Takada was a great worker, that makes my opinion "dated".

You just forgot to quote what I said just afterward :

 

I find this pretty silly.

Ok?

 

First reaction to the "dated" stuff is : "Maybe. And what is the point?"

Several posts later my second reaction is : "Wait a minute, it's just silly."

[S.L.L.]

Takada as a great worker being "dated" seems... come on. It's one thing to argue Fujiwara as being better than him, but Takada doesn't have to suck all of a sudden for Fujiwara to take his mantle. I honestly have no problem with people arguing Fujiwara over Takada. I mean it's wrestling. So what. So long as you don't start saying ... are a better band than the Beatles and "The Beatles as a great band is an out-of-date idea"... .

I came around to acknowledging The Monkees were a great band. I didn't have to do it at the expense of my Beatles fandom. I tend to find the "Monkees > Beatles" argument a bit loopy, but I don't think people who feel that way generally do so as a direct side effect of Monkees fandom.

 

The anti-Takada sentiment didn't develop as a direct result of the Fujiwara re-evaluation. They both sprung out of the DVDVR 80's Other Japan set, but that's the only real connection. One project, but two separate realizations: they noticed Fujiwara was a lot better than they had previously realized, and they noticed Takada wasn't as good as they remembered/as his reputation suggested.

 

I didn't take part in the Other Japan set, and in truth, my exposure to Takada over the years has been fairly minimal. My exposure to Fujiwara is still fairly minimal as well. Both guys have left a positive impression on me, but I'm willing to reconsider them with more footage. It would seem silly not to.

 

From my own experiences so far working on the 80's Texas set, one of the big revelations has been Jimmy Garvin, and one of the big disappointments has been David Von Erich. But those are two separate ideas. I'm not tearing down David to build up Gorgeous Jimmy. Garvin stands up on his own. No conspiracy necessary.

 

As for saying that I'm wary of the Fujiwara and Lawler surges because they're "fads"... I think that's a justifiable position to keep. I'm not saying it's a hollow fad or comparing it to Mark Henry vs. Shawn, but y'know wrestlers, matches, they have booms and surges. Some stay, some wither away, I prefer to be a bit more cautious with it y'know.

 

I prefer to watch the wrestlers in question and come to my own conclusions. What do you need to be cautious about? What do you stand to protect by not jumping on the Lawler/Fujiwara/whomever bandwagon if you watch their matches and decide that they're good?

 

And the Henry/Michaels thing is a perfect comparison - open-minded people watching wrestlers and drawing their own conclusions.

 

I don't think Fujiwara or Lawler are *bad*, I'm not arguing against these "fads" as being without merit, I just don't think Fujiwara is the best (Japanese) wrestler ever. Nor do I think Takada is, or Jumbo, or Misawa, or a whole hell of a lot of great GREAT wrestlers...

 

Then say that. The issue with the word "fad" is that it inherently suggests a lack of merit. That you'll be interested in this for a little while, and then you'll move on to something else. So if you actually genuinely feel some way about something, and have given it some degree of consideration, then someone calling it a fad smacks of dismissiveness and an unwillingness to consider a new opinion. Not to say you're necessarily doing that, but words mean things and all.

[jdw]

People have been ripping David and Kevin for years. It's just that no one listened.

 

John

[tomk]

Talk about old stuff

 

Dustin of the day was from 02. One could argue that that’s an old discussion that people still being reflected on today. Thread from February of this year and a thread from May of this year aren’t really “old”.

 

 

re-read those old thread, and I admit I found pretty amusing that my not-so serious post were dissected with such detailed attention.

SLL's post is a serious dissection. It’s completely unnecessary and, I think there are better things that SLL can be spending his time doing. But if you look at the old threads that I pointed to "[where] I think I said what needed to be said about the silliness of accusing opinions of being trendy in the Naylor comp thread" , I don’t see anything you said dissected with detailed attention.

 

Your “not so serious posts” weren’t being dissected. They were being dismissed as “not so serious posts”.

 

From Smarkschoice:

 

That has far more value to me than getting into worthless back and forths with people who don’t share my general tastes. It’s 2009 I’m not going to get into arguments with people whose tastes and aesthetics I understand (jdw or ohtani’s jacket) even if they aren’t my own. I sure as hell am not going to argue with people whose tastes I don’t share at all. It’s 2009 arguing with Dan Whalers, El Patoume or Zach Arnold just feels beneath me.

From prowrestlingonly:

 

Loss said:

 

I thought El-P's silence was a bit deafening, because he started the whole thing and then ducked out.

I pointed out:

 

EL-P's posts were:

 

 

"I love moves. I love workrate. Fuck Jerry Lawler."

 

"you can hear stuff like "Bill Dundee is the greatest worker ever" and stupidity like this. So I think we're still deeply into the "make fun of MOVEZ" phase."

 

"I could have said "Fuck Riki Choshu" too for instance"

 

 

From crossfacechicken wing’s 3/4/85 observer recap:

 

"*Several All Japan wresters have started wrestling a faster pace to keep up w/ Choshu’s style."

 

 

Schneider pointed out that Dundee was a guy with moves and so EL_P threw out workrate sprinter Choshu's name instead.

 

EL_P may have just as well said that "I don’t like Saturn cause he doesn’t have enough moves, high enough workrate."

How do you respond to that?

I sure as hell wasn't. I mean the discussion was a response to Rob's points, cause there is at least something worth arguing about there. There is nothing to argue with folks who think Saturn didn't do enough moves.

EL-P was silent cause he had nothing worthwhile to say.

Your “not so serious posts” weren’t being dissected. They were being dismissed as “not so serious posts”.

 

Your current posts are no different than your “old” “not so serious” stuff.

And so again I’m dismissing them and you as not being worth serious discussion.

 

But dismissing them as merely "trendy" demonstrates an embarrassing inability to actually argue the merits of those opinions.

[El-P]

Tom makes my head hurts.

Oh, I forgot that glorious "Arguing with Dan Whalers, El Patoume or Zach Arnold just feels beneath me." Glorious I tell you. And not nice to the people who don't feel beneath them to argue with me.

[S.L.L.]

Again, your own words in the second line....

 

The idea that Takada is a great shoot style worker, for example, is a completely dated idea.

 

Maybe. That doesn't make it less valuable.

"Maybe" is very hard to read as "no, that's silly".

 

Ok, want to play quote game.

I'll play it if you will.

 

You quoted me saying :

 

Holding onto 93 opinions? What? If I believe right now that Takada was a great worker, that makes my opinion "dated".

You just forgot to quote what I said just afterward :

 

I find this pretty silly.

Ok?

Not really. The ideas didn't clearly flow from one to another.

 

First reaction to the "dated" stuff is : "Maybe. And what is the point?"

Several posts later my second reaction is : "Wait a minute, it's just silly."

You are bad at this game.

 

First reaction to the dated stuff: "Maybe. That doesn't make it less valuable."

 

"That doesn't make it less valuable" and "and what is the point?" can mean the same thing: regardless of X, Y doesn't change. But in this case, you're arguing that "Takada as a great shoot-style worker" may or may not be a dated idea, but even if it is, it is still a valuable idea. Why? "The Night of the Hunter" is one of my favorite movies. It was a critical and box office flop on it's initial release, and Charles Laughton was so devastated by it's failure that he never directed another movie again. Is that really valuable knowledge when judging the movie today, or is it just an interesting - if unfortunate - bit of trivia?

 

Second reaction: "The idea that Fujiwara was one of the greatest workers in Japan is very trendy. Doesn't make it more valuable than the other."

 

Putting aside the question of whether or not the Fujiwara fandom is "trendy" or not for a moment, I'm still left puzzling over the value of "trendy" ideas vs. possibly dated ideas. I still think "American Beauty" is a great movie, but there was a time when people were talking about it as one of the great accomplishments in cinema history. An overstatement to be sure, but not convinced that it's a less valuable idea than the dated idea of "The Night of the Hunter is lousy". At least, it wasn't in 1999.

 

Third reaction: "It has became trendy to praise Fujiwara and Lawler."

 

I'm sure it's sheer coincidence that these "trends" started after a great deal of footage from both men was uncovered and disseminated to people who had never seen it before. Maybe a lot of people who had not been exposed to a great deal of their work previously decided that they were great independently of what other people thought. Nah, that's impossible! It must be a trend!

 

Fourth reaction: "I echoes the feeling MJH expressed early in the thread, I'm absolutely not convinced by Lawler's case, and although Fujiwara was ridiculously underrated for a long time, I don't see the "greatest japanese worker ever" argument at all, just like I don't see the "Takada wasn't a great worker" argument at all."

 

You're entitled to your opinion, certainly. Doesn't mean that people who disagree are just following trends.

 

Fifth reaction: "Of course it's trendy. The Dustin Rhodes stuff was trendy too."

 

18 years and counting...that's one hell of a trend.

 

Sixth reaction: "Don't get me wrong, it had a lot of positive (like all the DVDVDVR sets), but there's always the will to get the vaunted "forgotten great worker" from under a rock, and it leads to hyperboles."

 

I'm not gonna lie and say it wasn't cool to "discover" Jimmy Garvin while working on the Texas set. That said, not like I did it because I really wanted to discover a guy. I mean, I did want to do that, but I wasn't going to if there wasn't someone there worth discovering. Don't hear me singing the praises of Magic Dragon or Al Madril or Brian Adias. Don't hear me talking up The Great Kabuki as someone who hasn't been given a fair shake. There's no great conspiracy to change people's perceptions of certain wrestlers. That change is happening on it's own.

 

Seventh reaction: "Same things with music and cinema. Burn what you worshipped and get some new Gods. It's human."

 

So....good? Bad? Indifferent? "The Night of the Hunter" still sucks? It doesn't suck, but the idea that it does still holds value? Help me out here.

 

Eighth reaction: "I don't think objectivity and measure are prevalent in wrestling analysis. wink.gif"

 

Meaning what? Who's not being objective, and how can you tell? Who's not being measured, and how can you tell? How long does the Lawler/Fujiwara thing have to go on before it's OK to say that they're amongst the greats? 18 years? At least?

 

Ninth reaction: "Holding onto 93 opinions? What? If I believe right now that Takada was a great worker, that makes my opinion "dated". I find this pretty silly."

 

This was in response to Tom asking about your first reaction. It does not answer his question. "I find this pretty silly", as it's presented, seems to be pretty clearly referring to your interpretation of Tom's question, not to the "dated idea" thing as a whole. It does not even begin to read as "Wait a minute, it's just silly." There's no "wait a minute" moment in there. Nothing to suggest you've come to realize the whole argument is silly. It reads as you dismissing Tom's question - or rather, what you thought Tom's question was.

 

In summation, you don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit in the wind, you don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and you don't argue semantics with me.

[S.L.L.]

SLL's post is a serious dissection. It’s completely unnecessary and, I think there are better things that SLL can be spending his time doing.

No doubt, but you know me. I just can't resist it when someone sets it up on a tee for me like that.

[jdw]

Third reaction: "It has became trendy to praise Fujiwara and Lawler."

 

I'm sure it's sheer coincidence that these "trends" started after a great deal of footage from both men was uncovered and disseminated to people who had never seen it before. Maybe a lot of people who had not been exposed to a great deal of their work previously decided that they were great independently of what other people thought. Nah, that's impossible! It must be a trend!

My thought it the he's coming from the direction of other relooks/revisions getting labeled as "trendy" and "obsessions" before the Lawler/Fujiwara one. A few that I'm aware of and/or was involved in: Jumbo vs Tenryu, Jumbo Is Lazy, Destroyer Luv, Backlund Actually Wasn't A Shitty As The Old Consensus.

 

Jerome has gotten around around to (and/or stayed at) a *lot* more boards that I have over the past decade. For every one of those four that I've seen, he's probably seen at least five spring up.

 

My thought is that he's tossing "trendy" out here because he's seen it toss out in the past by folks who didn't agree with a revision and smacked it.

 

It's a bit like we joke about Dave saying we need to respect the opinions of others (such as "the masses") in one breath, then ripping the opinions of others when they don't agree with his (be it his poll results or the current wars with Snowden).

 

If you're going to say "It became trendy to love the Destroyer" or "they push Backlund beyond the point of obsession", you really need to be willing to take "It became trendy to love the Lawler" or "they push Fujiwara beyond the point of obsession" being tossed in your direction.

 

Note: that's not to rip Lawler or Fujiwara or their lovers. I like Lawler and I haven't bothered *yet* to re-watch enough Fujiwara to revist when I thought of him when watching all that shit back in the early 90s. Some day.

 

john

[S.L.L.]

If you're going to say "It became trendy to love the Destroyer" or "they push Backlund beyond the point of obsession", you really need to be willing to take "It became trendy to love the Lawler" or "they push Fujiwara beyond the point of obsession" being tossed in your direction.

I think we're agreeing in general, but I'm not sure I follow you here. I like The Destroyer and Backlund, and even if I didn't, I wouldn't just dismiss their respective fandoms as being "trendy".

[jdw]

You might not. My point is that it's about 99.99% likely that Jerome has seen the "trendy" spot tossed at Backlund and/or Destroyer. So he kind of has the right to lob it back at.

 

John

[MJH]

I've always termed fad as "the cool current thing". For me Fujiwara and Lawler fit that description and I always made the point of saying I wasn't calling it without merit, or saying that either guy wasn't very good or anything. "Cautious" is more me being cautious about the fad. Not cautious to join it or speak against it. I've spoken against it. I'll watch a Fujiwara match that is getting a lot of pimping as "great", hoping it's great, realistically expecting it to be good but being better than that would be a pleasant surprise for me. Hence, cautious. And Beach Boys >> Monkees. .

 

But I don't think "trendy" is automatically dismissive. It *is* trendy to argue Lawer as a Top 5 US worker or Fujiwara as the same for Japan. A lot of people have been making the arguement on various boards over the last year or so. Again, I never said it was a hollow idea, just somewhat hyperbolic for me. Both guys are/were good.

[S.L.L.]

You might not. My point is that it's about 99.99% likely that Jerome has seen the "trendy" spot tossed at Backlund and/or Destroyer. So he kind of has the right to lob it back at.

 

John

Ah, I see. Still, I'd think if you've been on the other side of it, you should know how stupid it is and know better than to do it yourself.

[Guest DietSoda]

Gordon Solie or Lance Russell?

Anyone?

[MJH]

Jim Ross .

 

Trying to beat OJ to Kent Walton...

[Sean Liska]

Gordon Solie or Lance Russell?

Anyone?

 

You have to go Russell with the footage available, but Solie's at a disadvantage because we don't have much from his peak. WWE Classics did a Film Vault on the Brisco-Funk feud from Florida, and I really got a feel from that for why people speak so highly of him, but there's not much out there. He was clearly past his prime by the early 80's.

[ohtani's jacket]

I've always termed fad as "the cool current thing". For me Fujiwara and Lawler fit that description and I always made the point of saying I wasn't calling it without merit, or saying that either guy wasn't very good or anything. "Cautious" is more me being cautious about the fad. Not cautious to join it or speak against it. I've spoken against it. I'll watch a Fujiwara match that is getting a lot of pimping as "great", hoping it's great, realistically expecting it to be good but being better than that would be a pleasant surprise for me. Hence, cautious. And Beach Boys >> Monkees. .

 

But I don't think "trendy" is automatically dismissive. It *is* trendy to argue Lawer as a Top 5 US worker or Fujiwara as the same for Japan. A lot of people have been making the arguement on various boards over the last year or so. Again, I never said it was a hollow idea, just somewhat hyperbolic for me. Both guys are/were good.

I doubt that Fujiwara is a fad for a guy like Phil. In essence, Destroyer was a fad because there aren't enough matches to go anywhere with it. In Fujiwara's case, there's a whole bevy of work out there.

[MJH]

OK.

 

To segue the discussion somewhat as far as grumpy shoot-style guys go:

 

Fujiwara or Volk Han.

[Cox]

Two guys who have both been discussed in this thread, I thought they'd make for an interesting compare/contrast: Lex Luger or John Cena? Specifically, Luger's 1989 or Cena's 2007?

[El-P]

"That doesn't make it less valuable" and "and what is the point?" can mean the same thing: regardless of X, Y doesn't change. But in this case, you're arguing that "Takada as a great shoot-style worker" may or may not be a dated idea, but even if it is, it is still a valuable idea. Why? "The Night of the Hunter" is one of my favorite movies. It was a critical and box office flop on it's initial release, and Charles Laughton was so devastated by it's failure that he never directed another movie again. Is that really valuable knowledge when judging the movie today, or is it just an interesting - if unfortunate - bit of trivia?

How the movie was judged back then is not required knowledge to judge it now. However, it is valuable knowledge if you're interested in movie reviewing history and how perception evolved. However, someone thinking in 2009 that "Night of the Hunter" is a bad movie should not be dismissed as having a "dated idea". It's stupid. He's probably got his own argument, maybe some which share points with ideas people have had back then, but in no way that means it's "dated".Much like thinking Takada is a great worker in 2009 isn't a "dated" idea just because there was a consensus 10 years ago that he was a great worker. There's no consensus anymore? Fine. Does that means that people thinking like the consensus 10 years ago have "dated ideas"? No.

 

Third reaction: "It has became trendy to praise Fujiwara and Lawler."

 

I'm sure it's sheer coincidence that these "trends" started after a great deal of footage from both men was uncovered and disseminated to people who had never seen it before. Maybe a lot of people who had not been exposed to a great deal of their work previously decided that they were great independently of what other people thought. Nah, that's impossible! It must be a trend!

Don't be naive, you know how it works. Of course it's coming from the fact that footage showed up. But it also comes from the fact that there are some trendsetters and a large flock of seagulls following the ship, especially at DVDVDR. I've been around for more than 10 years, I've seen it work that way more time that I can remember. Not that *everyone* praising Fuji or Lawler does it because they are followers, but the fact that a consensus seems to emerge often comes from the fact that people follow trendsetters. Like I said, it's the same things in movie or music. Reviewers are influencials.

 

You're entitled to your opinion, certainly. Doesn't mean that people who disagree are just following trends.

Thanks. Doesn't mean that my ideas are dated for disagreeing with the people with the "new views" either. Plus I didn't say to Dan that he was *following* a trend. I said that the Fujiwara and Lawler pimping as all time great is trendy. Like MJH said earlier, the use of the term "trendy" is not automatically dismissive. But you seem very defensive to have it thrown at you for whatever reason.

 

Fifth reaction: "Of course it's trendy. The Dustin Rhodes stuff was trendy too."

 

18 years and counting...that's one hell of a trend.

Nobody was pimping Dustin Rhodes ten years ago. No one. Lot of his old matches in the early 90's were thought as restholds dullfest. Really, there was absolutely no consensus about Dustin being this great worker in the 90's. After the Dustin of the Day he became second only to Terry Funk it seemed like. It was funny as hell. I always liked Dustin, even in his hated early Goldust days, but I never had the impression that I was in any kind of consensus. People talked bout how HHH was carrying Dustin back in 97.

 

Seventh reaction: "Same things with music and cinema. Burn what you worshipped and get some new Gods. It's human."

 

So....good? Bad? Indifferent? "The Night of the Hunter" still sucks? It doesn't suck, but the idea that it does still holds value? Help me out here.

I've already answered this earlier.

 

Ninth reaction: "Holding onto 93 opinions? What? If I believe right now that Takada was a great worker, that makes my opinion "dated". I find this pretty silly."

 

This was in response to Tom asking about your first reaction. It does not answer his question. "I find this pretty silly", as it's presented, seems to be pretty clearly referring to your interpretation of Tom's question, not to the "dated idea" thing as a whole. It does not even begin to read as "Wait a minute, it's just silly." There's no "wait a minute" moment in there. Nothing to suggest you've come to realize the whole argument is silly. It reads as you dismissing Tom's question - or rather, what you thought Tom's question was.

I don't want to sound rude or anything, but at this point you're clearly putting way too much though in dissecting the meaning of every word I type. I'm not writing an essay when I quickly reply in a discussion on a pro wrestling Internet board. You want to know my train of thoughts ? First of all it was "Well, maybe it's dated, but that doesn't make it less valuable", then after reading Tom's stuff about "holding onto 93 opinion", which pretty much meant "dated opinion" too, I just thought, "Well, it's just silly anyway.". I mean, I just told you that. I'm not trying to be a smart alec, it really was my train of thoughts about that, not that I spend a whole lot of times asking myself questions about this particular topic anyway.

 

In summation, you don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit in the wind, you don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and you don't argue semantics with me.

[El-P]

My thought it the he's coming from the direction of other relooks/revisions getting labeled as "trendy" and "obsessions" before the Lawler/Fujiwara one. A few that I'm aware of and/or was involved in: Jumbo vs Tenryu, Jumbo Is Lazy, Destroyer Luv, Backlund Actually Wasn't A Shitty As The Old Consensus.

 

Jerome has gotten around around to (and/or stayed at) a *lot* more boards that I have over the past decade. For every one of those four that I've seen, he's probably seen at least five spring up.

I've seen more than I can remember. Some that disapeared quickly, some than gave birth to a new consensus. It' was pretty interesting, pretty informative, and also, sometime, pretty embarrassing.

 

My thought is that he's tossing "trendy" out here because he's seen it toss out in the past by folks who didn't agree with a revision and smacked it.

Oh, I can remember some grumpy people thinking all of a sudden I (and a few others) thought Backlund was great because JDW pimped him.

[El-P]

For me Fujiwara and Lawler fit that description and I always made the point of saying I wasn't calling it without merit, or saying that either guy wasn't very good or anything.

Agreed. Revisiting stuff is good. I changed my mind on a lot of workers when I watched lots of early 90's NJ a few years ago, or during the GWE and WWE poll at SC.

 

"Cautious" is more me being cautious about the fad.

Once again, it echoes my own feelings. I just don't get caught easily into hyperboles about this or that guy suddenly becoming the great lost worker. Because it can lead to major disapointment when watching the footage later.

 

But I don't think "trendy" is automatically dismissive. It *is* trendy to argue Lawer as a Top 5 US worker or Fujiwara as the same for Japan. A lot of people have been making the arguement on various boards over the last year or so. Again, I never said it was a hollow idea, just somewhat hyperbolic for me. Both guys are/were good.

Exactly.

[El-P]

Fujiwara or Volk Han.

Volk Han. Just amazing to watch.

[kjh]

After the Dustin of the Day he became second only to Terry Funk it seemed like.

I think the problem is to get people to adjust their long held beliefs sometimes you have to hammer it home ad nauseum to get the message across. The danger is this leads to hyperbole and an inevitable backlash. For all the talk about people following opinions on DVDVR, it happens everywhere. Dustin of the Day, LONCE vs. Luger, Michaels vs. Henry, Jumbo is lazy, Backlund luv, etc, were all backlashes against the conventional wisdom peddled by the wrestling media and people in the business, and repeated without much thought by their followers. As OTT as the push of those views were, such a push was required when the person who is going to write the unofficial version of wrestling history, Dave Meltzer, has been conned into thinking that watching old matches is unfair to the workers because you shouldn't watch yesterday's matches with today's standards.

[ohtani's jacket]

Much like thinking Takada is a great worker in 2009 isn't a "dated" idea just because there was a consensus 10 years ago that he was a great worker. There's no consensus anymore? Fine. Does that means that people thinking like the consensus 10 years ago have "dated ideas"? No.

What makes you think "dated" is automatically dismissive? As far as I'm concerned, it's a fact.

 

If you look at Lorefice's comments about shoot style wrestling, they're completely out of date with what people think is good at the moment. That doesn't mean Mike has to give a shit. He may or may not get around to reappraising shoot style, and he may or may not knock the Fujiwara thing on his ass. I don't doubt for a second that my reappraisal of shoot style is based on what I want from wrestling right now. It's the same with Black Terry and Negro Navarro vs. the crap that CMLL put out. In ten years time, perhaps people will want something different out of wrestling. Maybe stand-up fighters will come back into vogue.

 

If you look at the DVDVR Best of the 90s results, the majority of it is dated. I'm fairly confident that minus the 80s matches, the SC WCW list will be a better list than the DVDVR results. Is that a bad thing? No. Ten years from now, the SC list will look poor.

 

As far as I know, you don't really like trends Jerome. You've always liked what you like regardless of popular opinion, and more often than not you've been anti-trends. I also think you're not likely to rush and watch any UWF/PWFG any time soon, so I think you are being a little dismissive of the notion that Fujiwara could possibly be better than Takada.

 

Anyway, this is probably boring most people.

 

Fujiwara or Volk Han.

Fujiwara.

 

I think they're extremely close in terms of working ability. They both worked in a way that no other workers were capable of. Volk's spots were probably more outrageous than Fujiwara's, but the advantage here is the sheer number of great matches that Fujiwara had over a longer period of time.

[El-P]

What makes you think "dated" is automatically dismissive? As far as I'm concerned, it's a fact.

Ok then. My bad. I admit that to me the term "dated" sounds like a pretty negative one, be it in English or French (I don't think there's much difference between the two). Maybe I'm wrong to think that way, but I think when people use that word to talk about films, music, ideas or whatever, it's pretty much always in a dismissive way.

 

If you look at Lorefice's comments about shoot style wrestling, they're completely out of date with what people think is good at the moment.

Probably.

 

That doesn't mean Mike has to give a shit.

I agree. Like I would still praise LCO's prime now, although that would be a very "1998" opinion to most people I guess.

 

He may or may not get around to reappraising shoot style, and he may or may not knock the Fujiwara thing on his ass. I don't doubt for a second that my reappraisal of shoot style is based on what I want from wrestling right now. It's the same with Black Terry and Negro Navarro vs. the crap that CMLL put out. In ten years time, perhaps people will want something different out of wrestling. Maybe stand-up fighters will come back into vogue.

I can only agree with all you say there.

 

If you look at the DVDVR Best of the 90s results, the majority of it is dated. I'm fairly confident that minus the 80s matches, the SC WCW list will be a better list than the DVDVR results. Is that a bad thing? No. Ten years from now, the SC list will look poor.

Will look poor to the eyes of who? That's the question. Because it's been made in 2009 will not mean it's automatically badly done. Especially since there won't be anymore WCW matches to discover in ten years, most everything woiuld have already been seen. For the record most of the DVDVR Best of the 90's didn't look good to me when it was done. It doesn't look dated to me now. It looks just as wrong in many aspect as it was the year it was done. Maybe in ten years the people who will do a best of WCW list will have terrible taste and their list will look poor compared to what has been done in 2009.

 

As far as I know, you don't really like trends Jerome.

That's right. To a fault sometime I confess.

 

You've always liked what you like regardless of popular opinion, and more often than not you've been anti-trends.

Pretty much. I always get wary with mass enthousiasm. Well, sometimes it is justified.

 

I also think you're not likely to rush and watch any UWF/PWFG any time soon, so I think you are being a little dismissive of the notion that Fujiwara could possibly be better than Takada.

Hum... I wouldn't say that. I have stack of wrestling on my hard drive that I would want to watch and don't find the time too. I would watch more UWF/PWFG, because I really haven't seen enough, and I love that style. I wouldn't be against watching a lot more prime Fujiwara, but from what I've seen from him, I admit I don't see the argument of him being better than Takada. And like I said, I don't want to watch Fuji (or Lawler), with the "he's one of the greatest workers ever" thing on my mind, because it could only led to disapointment. Watching Backlund and expecting nothing in particular was eye opening. When watched all that Backlund for the WWF poll, I wasn't immersed at all in the Backlund pimping by John. I had seen Backlund vs Inoki a few years before, and it bored the hell out of me, so I got into those Backlund match with really an open mind. I watched a few big Lawler matches after the "Lawler is one of the greatest wrestler ever" trend was off and running, and really I was baffled watching the matches at how that notion could have surfaced. In a way it damaged my enjoyment of the matches because none could get to the level that it had been pimped.

 

Anyway, this is probably boring most people.

Probably. Plus the more I try to articulate complex ideas, the worst my English gets. Ugh.